Unnatural Selection
by AleTheHOUSEwife
Summary: No one knows where House is after accepting a tough deal to pay for his actions in the s7 finale. And the things he's seeing this far from home might change him forever. Will this be enough to earn him forgiveness from Wilson and above all Cuddy?
1. Chapter 1

A/N: hi! I got the idea for this story a while ago, thinking of alternative ways for House to pay for his crazy "performance" back in May. This story is set some time after the season 7 finale. And I'm not willing to reveal anything else because I'll otherwise spoil the end of this chapter to you. This is a hard time in House's life: he's far -very far- from home, in a hostile environment where death is behind every corner. And he misses the life he has decided to waste, but it might be a bit too late to put a remedy to it. Probably huddy towards the end, but I'm planning to make this exciting for you up until then, ship aside.

Warning: rated M for raw images, war, blood, whatever.

* * *

><p><strong>Unnatural Selection<strong>

They'll laugh as they watch us fall,  
>The lucky don't care at all,<br>No chance for fate,  
>It's unnatural selection,<br>I want the truth.

–––

**Chapter One**

Snakes of New Jersey

–––

So, that had to be how dying in a place like that was like. Just a whole new level of pain, and undesired liquids wetting the sheets. And the smell, oh, the smell: it had to be blood, judging by the lingering halo of metal. And disinfectants. Only disinfectant could send off such a creepy smell, the odor of hopelessness: that was when they used it, when bandages and syringes and wishful thinking overflew from their hands, flooding the tiled floors, they patted disinfectant all over the bodies, in a last attempt at saving the day with the less still hearts they could.

House turned back to the door he had come in from. For a second, he regretted his decision to come here. But now that blood and sweat and urine strained his scrubs, he could not call it off. The room was crowded, noisy and rectangular: beds – cots – aligned up to the small pane-less window: they had just lost the glass panel, thanks to a hand grenade being thrown at it by some son of a bitch hidden in the bushes that surrounded the hospital building. "It's a fucking hospital, you motherfuckers!" had been House's colleague's last words, before he brought both hands to his stomach, wide-eyed from pain and surprise at the piece of shrapnel embedded in his own flesh.

House's thoughts ran back home as if they had their own free will. His office, clean bedding, the silence in the ICU, all those private rooms and quiet OR's. Having a potentially infinite number of changes for scrubs in the locker room. And peace, which was now an empty word for those working in that living hell with sand and fear and mines all over. He fell on his knees, deafened by the explosion, reaching for his colleague who was bleeding out inches from him.

"Hey, I'm here."

The young doctor in scrubs as dirty as House's tried his best at a distorted smile.

"Yeah..."

They needed that stupid attack to be over. They needed to operate on him, take all the fragments out of his abdomen. House pressed his open palms on the man's wounds, but he could only see blood pushing its way between his fingers.

"House..."

"Shut up, doctor Jordan. Save your breath for surviving."

"It's fine."

"Shut _up_."

Jordan turned his face aside, suffocating a twinge of pain. House exhaled, trying to collect himself. He was freaking out, that was the truth.

"I told you to shut up."

"House..."

"_What_, for the sake of..."

"I know you."

"Jordan, I swear to god if you don't keep your mouth sh..."

"I graduated from Princeton, seven years ago."

"Good for you, mate. Now, please..."

"What did you do?"

House startled.

"What..."

"Your leg. I remember your cane, and the...pills... The story you told."

"What story?"

"The...uhm..." Jordan's breath got faster. "Carmen Electra. The golfer."

House almost released the grip from his colleague's arm.

"You were there."

"I was there."

Jordan was at the lecture House had given many years earlier, in a crowded hall filled with naïve med students forced by Cuddy to hear his thoughts on the basics of Diagnostic medicine. Jordan was there and now he was here. Dying. He was the guy who thought Stacy had made the right decision in order to save House's life.

"You said the patient... You said _I_ was an idiot."

"You were."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome. It was a good lecture though."

"I know right."

All around them, the patients were paralyzed in their beds, wordless. Jordan had been caught by the explosion because he was right in front of the window, and his body had prevented the pieces of shrapnel and the splinters from blasting away the whole room. Thank god he and House had just pushed the beds a little farther from the damn window.

"So... What did you do."

"I did nothing, Jordan. I'm here, just like you."

"No cane. No pills. I see you swallowing ibuprofen before going to bed. Ibuprofen was a joke for you seven years ago. And you came here, while all you used to care about is..."

"I... detoxed."

"That explains the pills and the cane. What else. Why are you here?"

Another grenade exploded somewhere far from their building. Someone screamed, and they could hear M4's shooting. Then, a major blast. And the lights went off. Someone whispered a prayer in Farsi.

"House..." Jordan's face was getting paler and paler. House felt the man's blood and urine wetting his knees.

"Hold on. Hold on Jordan... I'll be right back."

House limped out, in desperate search for someone. All around, it was just sand, fire and distant shots. He wished he had his cane to walk faster, but that just wasn't part of the deal.

"Help! Help!"

Then, someone grabbed his shoulders and pushed him down on the ground.

"What the hell..."

"For god's sake, doctor House! Shut up and go back inside. We're under attack."

"I need help."

"Everyone does. A commando just wreaked havoc on the entire area. Kandahar's on fire."

"Doctor Jordan is injured... badly... Listen," House freed himself from the soldier's grip, without standing up. "He's..." he lowered his voice. "He's bleeding out."

The officer raised his stare and exhaled, sincerely hit by House's words.

"I'm sorry..."

"Yeah, me too. Now could you please send someone? I need a nurse to watch my patients over there. I need to take care of Jordan, _right now_."

"We have to wait until this is over."

"It is over! We're not under fire anymore. Come on, I'm doing it all by myself. Look, just... Keep an eye on me while I take Jordan out to the OR."

"The orders are to stay inside. You have to go back, House. We'll call you when it's over."

"This is bullsh..."

Another explosion, this time aimed at the central building, about 100 feet from where they lay. House's mouth filled with boiling sand. The soldier had jumped to his feet bracing his M4 carbine and was now invisible in the fog created by the falling debris and the lifted sandy soil flying midair. House spat and crawled his way back inside his small "department". When he crossed the threshold, still partially blinded from the explosion, and definitely deafened by it, his strength just wore off, and he fell face-flat on the floor, coughing.

"Doctor Hows. You right?"

A young man in grey cottoned pants with a huge bandage on his abdomen crouched beside him. He had to be in his late teens.

"Doctor Hows, we pray they go away, we pray, listen. Wake, okay?"

House opened up his eyes to the darkness of the shaded room.

"You. Go back to bed, and stay away from the door. It's dangerous."

"I know! They send me." The boy pointed his finger at the older men in bed. They nodded convincingly. "We were worried you being bad."

"What a mindless people..." House couldn't hide the sad smile forming on his face. They were brave, indeed. Men born and raised in war, who never knew which side to take because whoever won was just as evil as the others. They had lived their lives in civil war and then ruled by the men with long beards who had banned kites and music. And then the Terror War bombs had come, and the defeated long beards placing mines all over the place, and their children losing limbs in 2010 as their fathers did in 1985. It was all a fucking mess and House hated it. Even now, that an unsteady veil of peace had covered the lands of Afghanistan after the mission, people kept dying and terrorist attacks kept scaring everyone, no matter how hard the US Army and all the others fought them back. The Red Cross needed personnel and supplies, and House's job there was making sure that as many patients as possible walked out of that hospital on their legs, either artificial or not. That was why the Army had sent him to Kandahar to help the ICRC, as an emergency surgeon with a double specialty in infectious diseases and nephrology. But that was not yet the whole story, and no one knew it except from House himself.

"Hey, Amir."

"Yes!"

"I'm fine, boy. Go back to bed now."

"'Kay doctor."

The young man walked up to his bed and propped his knees to his chest, rocking himself.

House stood up, leaning against the door frame, and reached the rear of the room, staggering dangerously.

"Hey, Jordan. Jordan..."

The young doctor lay on the floor in the same position he had left him. He hardly opened up his eyes.

"I thought you'd been blown up. Good to see you here mate." He whispered.

"Don't talk. I need... Listen." House pulled a flask from his left pocket and held it close to Jordan's mouth. "I fetched it while rolling in the sand with officer Travis, five minutes ago. Drink."

"What the..."

"Drink."

Jordan swallowed a couple of shots.

"More."

"House, I don't..."

"Drink more."

House ripped his colleague's scrubs off and exposed the naked, bloody skin of his chest. Two pieces of shrapnel, one huge glass splinter. He washed his hands with the remaining scotch, and poured some on Jordan's wounds. The younger man shrieked.

"I'm sorry..." House swallowed a lump of panic.

_He'll never make it._

"Hey, Jordan... How many types of poisonous snakes are there in New Jersey? Remember?"

"Uh... I guess..."

House wrapped his fingers around the piece of glass, pressing the wound with his free hand wrapped up in a piece of cloth.

"How many? Come on."

He applied pressure on the cloth and ensured his grip on the splinter.

"I don't remember..."

"Come on! Think Jordan, think!"

"Two..."

"That's right, man. Which ones?"

"The..."

House pulled.

Their patients were frozen in their beds, no one even screened his ears from the desperate cry Jordan let out. The young doctor started sobbing heavily.

"Oh, god..."

"Come on, which ones?"

"The copper..." House pulled again."...head! The _copperhead_! Jesus!"

"Remember, we thought it was a snake! Do you remember?"

House's piece of cloth was now soaked in blood.

"Yes... I... checked the types..."

"You did. There was another one. Which one was it Jordan? Come on!"

"The... it was the... I can't. _I can't_..."

House grabbed the last piece, trying to keep his grip steady as the blood and bodily liquids made his fingers slippery.

"No, no... please..."

"Which one!"

"The timber... Ahhhh!" Jordan's eyes turned hollow for a second. "The motherfucking timber rattlesnake! Stop it..."

"It's over, Jordan. It's..." House threw a glance at the puddle of blood around them. "You did great. Remember? It wasn't a snake."

"It was the dog."

"Indeed. You did great, mate. It's all right. I'm finished."

House pressed a clean cloth on Jordan's now fully opened wounds. He poured all the remaining alcohol on the cuts before patting them as gently as he could.

"Hold on, they're coming. No more explosions, see? They're coming. You'll be all right." House looked the young dying doctor in the eye. He had found out he could easily lie to anyone, persuading them all was going to be fine. That was the price of war: you would lose your sincerity.

"House..."

"Yes."

"What did you do?"

"I told you..."

"Don't lie to me. You made me curious, it's your fault."

"It was a single damn lecture."

"I know. What did you do?"

"You don't want to know..." House hesitated. "I'm not... a hero. I'm bad."

Jordan slowly shook his head.

"You're not. House... You're not."

"I... I came here in exchange... For prison time."

Jordan smiled.

"Thanks."

By the time Amir had jumped off his bed to help House's shaking arms sustain Jordan, the young doctor had already died.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

The boy in the bubble

–––

_It's a turn-around jump shot_  
><em>It's everybody jump start<em>  
><em>It's every generation throws a hero up the pop charts<em>  
><em>Medicine is magical and magical is art<em>  
><em>The Boy in the Bubble<em>  
><em>And the baby with the baboon heart.<em>

–––

Boston, MA.

–

The house was clean and cozy, a two-storey apartment whose upper floor consisted of an attic converted into two large bedrooms and a study room. Cuddy had the wooden ceiling painted in white, and two large windows embedded in the roof let the skylight in, making the entire space very bright. The main floor, with pastel-painted walls, consisted of a small kitchen, dining room and a pretty large living room with a fireplace and two huge cream-white leathered couches. It was all sunlit, bright and shining. Boston was a nice place, perfect for a new beginning.

Cuddy poured some sugar on the pancakes. Still in her nightwear, hair pulled back in a ponytail, she looked like someone who had gotten her first good night sleep in ages. That was the day she would get her life back, starting from a job interview at Massachusetts General for a new position as Head of Endocrinology. Not that she hadn't appreciated her job as Chief Administrator for PPTH, but she felt like she needed to get back to patients and families and appointments. She needed human contact: after all she had been through in the last year and a half, she did not want complications, or a crazy five-to-nine office job without even seeing a toddler with a cough despite the "M.D." on her name tag. Lisa Cuddy wanted safety and a rewarding job, and most of all she wanted to cut the cord with her previous life in Princeton and the awry turn it had taken before she decided to sell the house and fly north.

Rachel walked in through the pale pink-painted hallway. She yawned and waved at her mother while keeping her stare fixed into their new led TV screen, broadcasting morning news from the world.

"Good morning, honey." Cuddy placed her daughter's breakfast onto the wooden table and poured orange juice in Rachel's glass. "Come on, you're going to be late for school."

Rachel turned back, squeezing her rag doll. She looked pretty worried.

"I want to stay home with Marina."

Cuddy exhaled. Rachel was her main concern, at the moment. There were days she looked happy and excited about the new place, but there were other days, those Cuddy was worried about. On such days, the little girl would be rather silent and discontent with anything Cuddy proposed to her. To help her daughter settle in the new environment, she had planned to stay home for a couple of months following their move: money wasn't their problem, whereas relocating a life was a bit harder than stuffing the kitchen furniture into a different, smaller room.

"I don't want to go to school, mom. I want Marina."

"Rachel... It's our day, remember? Mom's got a new job, you've got a new school." Cuddy left the table and reached her daughter, kneeling beside her. She muted the TV and began adjusting the girl's flowered dress. "You'll have so many things to tell me tonight. I'll pick you up at four o'clock, okay? I'll be there, we'll go to the park together."

"But mommy..."

"Come on, sweetie."

"I want to go home."

"This is home, Rachel. People move. You're here with me, it's all fine." Cuddy flashed a glance at the TV, just to see a collapsed hospital somewhere in Central Asia. She got up to get herself a coffee.

"Mom!"

Cuddy startled and turned back.

"What, what is it?"

"There's Hows in the TV!"

Cuddy brought a hand to her face and exhaled, closing her eyes for a second. Of course. House. Of all things from before that Rachel kept coming up with.

"Rachel, that is not our hospital." At the first tear rolling down Rachel's right cheek, Cuddy regretted using that adjective. "See? It's very, very far. It's another place, there's no one we know. There's a war going on, honey. House can't be there."

"I saw Hows, mom."

"Rachel..."

"I want Wilson. I want to tell him."

Cuddy gave up. That would be another tough day.

"We'll call him tonight, okay? So you can tell him about school."

"I'll tell him about Hows in the war!"

"You'll tell him whatever you want."

–––

Princeton, NJ

–

Doctor James Wilson, Head of Oncology at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, stood in front of the new Dean of Medicine.

"'Got any news?"

"Not a damn thing."

"Uhm. I See. Well, I guess they'll call us if the gets into trouble..."

"If he kills himself."

"I didn't say..."

"I know, I'm just... worried."

"Yeah. Me too."

Doctor Foreman, forgetting about his whole new career jump and the kind of attitude it demanded from him, stretched his legs, pensively rubbing his forehead. Wilson would understand. In fact, Wilson understood pretty well, since all he wanted to do at the moment was walking out through the same door he had come in, finding his car in the parking lot and going back home to his king size bed, pretending things were just like a year earlier.

"All I know is that he's refused any contacts whatsoever. Visits, phone calls."

"That's him."

"It is. But that was more than six months ago. I guess he'd have called if he had changed his mind."

"I guess so. Hope the son of a bitch survives this."

"He will. I... hope he will, Foreman. I don't know, it might even be good for him. What he did..."

"I know. I was just wondering how long he'll be locked up. We're running out of patients for the team. People want House."

Wilson sat down in front of his new boss, in fact finding it weird because he was still not used to see a man, and Foreman of all candidates, sitting at Cuddy's desk.

"No idea. He'll have to get his license back anyway. No way you can just rehire him."

"Yeah... But I'll work something out."

"Foreman."

"Yes?"

"Are you sure? He's not... he will just get out to find his job waiting for him, as if nothing happened. He doesn't..."

"Deserve it?"

Wilson exhaled. He was angry, and disappointed, and still so upset at House, that he was not even sure he wanted him back in his life, not to mention seeing him every day being his old self at the hospital.

"I don't know."

"Wilson... the thing is: we need patients to keep the department alive. We need donations, because we do it for free. It's like... An entire firm working pro bono only. You need the best lawyers if you want to act as if you didn't care about the money. You need leverage. Funding happens when you kick asses. Without House, _our_ asses are gonna get kicked. Bad."

"That was pretty straightforward." Wilson smiled sadly. "Got it, thanks."

"Plus..." Foreman entwined his hands, leaning back against the soft headrest of his office chair. "What is he going to come home to? His job is the only thing he has."

Wilson's surprise could not escape Foreman's eyes.

"What?"

"Nothing..."

"Are you surprised that I care?"

"Well... yes. Yes, I am."

"You were not the only one caring all along."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"It's fine, never mind."

"Yeah. It's just that I'm wondering where caring will lead us. Up until now, caring got me all the bad in this world."

Foreman remained silent. Wilson was right, and although he had never said a word about all the things that had happened to him in the years because of House, everyone knew he had always put his friend before all he had ever held dear in life, at the expenses of his own feelings.

"Look, you don't need to talk to him, see him, whatever. If he comes back, when he does, I'll make sure you two don't cross paths, if you don't want to. I'll just need my Head of Diagnostics back, when it's time."

"That's not what I was saying."

"I know, just... Think about it. And let me know if you hear from him."

Wilson stood up and went for the door. He turned back to Foreman before walking out.

"I probably won't."

"I know, Wilson. I know."

––

On his way to his office, Wilson stopped by the common room. It was early in the morning, a quiet, rainy Monday with few appointments, all of them not until nine o'clock. There was time for a cup of coffee and the guilty pleasure of a french toast with a slab of butter.

"'morning, doctor Wilson."

"Good morning Ted, Martin..." Wilson waved at the two obstetricians sipping tea on the couch. He went for the fridge and took the bread and eggs. In the background, the low-volume morning chitchat of the CNN news kept the three silent men company. Then, Martin stood up and slammed his cup in the sink. Wilson almost stabbed his slice of bread, turning it to cook it faster. Small talk had become quite awkward lately, since they all knew why House was gone and how lonely and grumpy Wilson was because of that. They thought he had been an idiot for being that bastard's friend all along, and Wilson could not help but notice their disapproval behind the appearance of courtesy.

"...That must be a goddamn living hell." Martin pointed at the TV with a dirty spoon.

"Brenda would certainly stop whining about the lack of epi shots, for the life of her. She'd have more important stuff to look after."

"That's for sure. And doctor Foreman with his Westwood suits, _so_ out of place."

"You need a shitload of guts to save the day."

"I guess so. Hey, Wilson!"

The oncologist turned back to Ted, whose conversation with Martin had let him believe he had been spared. Of course, he had not.

"Yes?"

"You know what?"

"What."

Ted stood up and turned up the volume. Pointing the remote at the TV screen, he could not wipe the grin off his face.

"Your friend, that motherfucker. He wouldn't last one day down there."

Wilson did not answer. He slammed his bread on a plate and sat down at the nearest table.

"That's so true." Martin laughed at his friend's joke. "Jail? What's jail? He should have been shunted to Afghanistan, that's what they should have done to him."

"Yeah, he'd have had to get his shit together quickly, that's for sure. No mommy Cuddy, no Jimmy-boy."

"I can picture him without his precious medicine, freaking out in the desert. That cheeky sod."

"Yeah. And then... _boom_."

There was a second of utter. suffocating silence.

Then. Wilson pushed his plate, cup and fork down on the floor with a noisy rattle. He stood up in all quietness.

"Fuck. You." He hissed.

As he marched out, Ted and Martin stood frozen on their feet.

No one had noticed House's quick appearance on the screen, while he was dragging the dead body of a young man with the help of a local teenage boy in bandages. The journalist's recap of the latest Taliban attack, aimed at a Red Cross healthcare facility in Kandahar, was now replaced by the opening of the Markets.

–

That night, Rachel came home so tired and excited about her first day of preschool in Boston, that she didn't even mention Wilson. Half-heartedly, Cuddy postponed for another day the call she had promised many times already. One day, Rachel would stop asking.

* * *

><p>an: soooo... Are you ready to go back to Afghanistan after this quick American breakfast? Our Boy in the bubble-House is going to have his hands full over there, while poor Wilson (and everyone else) still thinks he's in jail. Things are going to stay like that for a long time, until... Until I reach the chapter where House comes back, lol! No, maybe even then... *evilface*  
>Are you enjoying, by the way? I'm trying to keep writing as much as I can while I'm inspired and excited for this story, unlike my poor other fic Return To Innocence, which is NOT forgotten though, don't worry. I've just had a bit of a writer's block lately. I know exactly what is going to happen, but somehow I can't put it down to words in a satisfactory way. Ugh. Let me know about this one, if you have a minute, however... It's a strange story, very different from my usual, I need to know you're there anyhow, if you are of course.<p> 


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Distant constellations

–––

Mirwais Hospital  
>Kandahar, Afghanistan<p>

–

"Close it up."

With a last glance at the stump, House tossed his mask and gloves into the trash can and went out. He walked the freshly painted corridor up to the locker room and sat down on a plastic chair, wearily. He was pulling his thousandth 24-hour shift and that was the last hour, the hardest. After a sudden sting in his stomach, House realized he hadn't eaten in almost one entire day.

Even the leg hurt. His infamous leg, which had given him hell for twelve long years, had mercifully opted for a handy, yet suspicious silence during House's work hours. But the pain would always come back by midnight: it would crawl its way up the knee, always on time, always inexorable. That was the hour when all of them would wrap the day up in the bedsheets, when even the strongest, toughest German nurses from the Red Cross were too tired to talk and laugh and be substantially human. Silent people would just sip tea and fall asleep, trying to erase the visions of the day.

However, during the rest of his busy hours, House had learnt that there are things which make psychosomatic pain less tragic, less invincible. Perhaps, it was the crossfire. Or the airstrikes. Or it could just be the idiocy of those thinking they could carry on with life in the middle of a war, thus ending up in bloody pieces in his ER. Maybe the mines placed in those unsuspicious, abandoned toys were responsible. Or it could be the hunger, the lack of safety on the roads and in the most desolated areas of the Country. Or either, and most likely, all of these reasons all together, bringing to life the tragedy of a people.

Apparently, House's pain was shifting from his private nightmare to a more diffuse, nonetheless painful site. Rubbing and patting his right thigh with a wet towel, House realized the utter relief that simple gesture was giving him: it was like Vicodin, but more rewarding and less dangerous for himself and those around him. In Afghanistan, there was no Vicodin. Detox was a distant memory from his Mayfield days: now, absence was his detox. After his shameful 'one time thing' months before, House had really managed to live with the less medicine he could: he had tried to waste his life in other ways, that was for sure. But the pills were not his main problem, he could do without sinking an entire bottle in one day. And here... here there was just no way he could get any other painkiller than ibuprofen. So, that was the deal: survival had turned off his other needs, like being decadent and a goddamn drug addict.

In the OR, House's assistants stitched up the above-knee stump that did not resemble anymore the kid's lower limb. They wrapped it up in bandages and took the little girl to her room. House saw them wheeling the gurney: only the noise from the wheels came to his ears, as none of the nurses were talking.

House found himself counting the amputations he had performed throughout the day. Three. One on that five year-old child being wheeled to her room. He tiredly stood up and grabbed his cane from the locker: he allowed himself to carry it when work was over, just to make it to his bed, falling in a merciful coma-like sleep until the morning after. His limp worsening with each step from the fact that he had been standing for hours, House walked out into the Eastern starry night of Kandahar.

It was almost midnight, and the ER was quiet: they had managed to recover from the attack very quickly. In a month, volunteers from the ICRC and some locals had managed to rebuild the collapsed outer walls of the main building: thankfully, the damages were restricted, and they had been able to keep the hospital open during the entire reconstruction, except for one single day: that is, when Jordan's funerals had been held.

_Jordan, you moron. Nice way to avoid work. Amir says you're probably living it up with virgins or something, and that's not fair because I'm stuck here with mines and blood and dirt. You know what, Jordan? Stay where you are. It's way better, whatever it looks like. Amir says we can both come see you if we manage to step on the right mine, but I'm fine with waiting, and he's a liar: the kid's fighting his life out to recover. His burns are getting better and better everyday, after I put him on the antibiotics I got from the latest Red Cross delivery: they parachute stuff, Jordan. You wouldn't believe how ridiculous it is, but they parachute meds, clothes, food. They parachute artificial limbs. We are isolated, we're fucking lost here after the attack. The convoys can't trespass the outskirts of the city without getting blown up: it's a battle and it's full on. I hope someone fights the talibans back so I can stop sterilizing dirty rubber feet picked up from the ground before someone steals them. I just can't fix and patch everything, however. People keep dying on my table and there's no mystery about them. There's no case, just the rush to stitch them up before they bleed out and the wishful thinking that we'll get enough blood supplies and antibiotics for everyone. The same old story, Jordan, just without you. _

House slid down to the ground, tilting his head back against the outer wall of the ER, his weary stare fixed into the dark sky. They had thought Jordan would have wanted his body sent back to his family. Instead, House had found a handwritten piece of paper while going through his stuff. The young doctor wanted to be buried there, in Afghanistan. That had been a surprise to everyone and eventually it had made a strong impression: all of the patients able to walk on their own had participated to Jordan's funerals, not to mention the entire medical staff and the spokesperson from the US Embassy. It had been a weird ceremony, filled with everyone's grief and the sincere respect they had for the young man who had opted to give his own life for whoever came at his doorstep, regardless of anything else than his vow to heal and do no harm.

"You miss Jordan?"

House startled. Beside him, a crouched, smiling Amir was patting his shoulder.

"What the hell, Amir. Don't _appear_ like that. It's scary."

"Sorry. I couldn't sleep."

"You should try. You should actually lie down."

"Boring."

"Yeah."

"Doc?"

"What, Amir."

"You miss Jordan?"

"Uh..." House hesitated, unsure whether to speak his mind or not. That was not like him, but hey, that was Afghanistan and not Princeton. "Kind of." He nodded.

"I know."

House exhaled. "Yet, you asked."

"You not talk about you."

House adjusted himself and crossed his arms.

"Shove off before I remember you still need your shot."

Amir giggled.

"You gave me the shot before!"

"You never know with antibiotics. Two shots is a privilege here, son."

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For your friend."

"He was not..." House shook his head, with a half-hearted smile. "He was my colleague, not my friend."

"You don't know nothing, Hows." With a sad smile, Amir stood up and made it as if to walk away. But then, he seemed to change his mind and turned back. "Or you know too much."

Amir headed back inside, leaving only silence behind himself. House exhaled. He missed Jordan more than he was ready to admit, and the truth was that he and Amir were the closest thing to a friend he had down there. They kept him connected, they laughed with him and about him and themselves. They shared with him the daily dose of horror and humanity those lands offered to their inhabitants: they knew what he was going through as much as he knew what they were experiencing. Except that he felt like he was not worth anyone's friendship: House had not kept his sentence a secret, but he had not made it public either: he was there like everybody else, to save lives at day and go to sleep at night, occasionally sharing a community dinner for the sake of bonding in a foreign, potentially deathly context, between human beings estranged from their world. That was it: who had been sent there wasn't different from who had signed the form: their job was the same and put to the same level.

House was the perfect match: silent, guarded, hard-working, incredibly good at his job, like anyone else. Too good for jail, too good to build benches and serve food with a bunch of misfits. Down there, it was House they called when something was about to go wrong: House would stick to the patient until the very end, fighting because that was just the way things had to be done. House did not bond with his patients, House did not cry, or freak out, or puke. House would never lose it, for anything. There was no need for anyone to know how painfully those images were being carved everyday somewhere deep inside his heart, as long as he managed to stay true to his character of a lifetime: he had not changed, and that was just another place. Only so much worse than everywhere else. A place where everything you'd ever considered gratuitous had a price: like having friends. Because at a certain point a motherfucking hand grenade would rip their intestines out before your helpless eyes, making atonement so much harder_. _

House could not restrain a twinge of pain in his leg, recalling the other person of whom he could say that he had been connected to: his friend from before, maybe the only one he had ever had in his whole civilian life. He missed Wilson and he considered him almost as lost as Jordan, just without the six feet of ground: he had chased him away him voluntarily and for that he was angry at himself and the whole world of lies and guardedness and denial he had built around himself. Just now that Jordan's death had forced its way to House's soul, he was able to fully understand how wrong and irremediable his loss of Wilson was: there had been no hand grenade to take his friend away; just his own mindlessness, the self-destructive path he had been on, those were responsible. House himself was responsible. The consciousness that no one knew where he was, and that he could die any time with just his daemons to creep their undesired company inside his mind, were of no relief. Not anymore. Of all things he felt down there, House felt irremediably alone.

His last thought was a floating sense of warmth and the sound of a laugh, a vaguely familiar smell of cigars and the feeling that all was right again. Then, he fell asleep with his whole body motionless, abandoned on the ground like an unwanted doll.

* * *

><p>an: I'm back! 'Been pretty busy with uni requirements, story was not forgotten but time does not forgive... :P  
>Next chapter we'll get to know Amir better, and House will be involved in something that will set the events for the rest of the story in an unexpected way.<p> 


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

The perfect fit

–––

Trenton, NJ

–

"May I help you, sir?" The woman at the counter looked nice. Not like someone working at a state prison, anyway. She hung up the receiver, adjusted her police badge and directed all of her attention and a kind smile at an embarrassed Wilson not quite knowing what to do with his hands.

"Uh... er... Yes, I guess so." Wilson raised his brows. "Listen, officer... I take it you're keeping a friend of mine in here."

"Okay...?"

"And... uhm."

"You want to see your friend."

Wilson swallowed and raised his finger. "Yes, that's it. That's it. Thanks...?"

"Fiona."

"Thanks, Fiona."

Fiona stood up and took some sheets from a drawer. She placed the forms on the counter and got a pen for Wilson.

"I need you to sign these, and leave your watch and pens and cellphone..."

"I'll just leave the entire briefcase."

"That'll be perfect."

"Okay then."

Wilson grabbed the pen from the counter. His hand was shaking a bit. He dropped it back onto the counter and closed his eyes.

"Listen..." Fiona exhaled. "I see a lot of visitors. I know how it feels, to... uh... But you look different: you look _normal_. That doesn't mean you have to feel awkward."

"Yeah... I know. I guess."

"It's okay. You want to see someone who clearly did something bad. You still have the right to miss your friend."

Wilson furrowed his brows.

"I don't miss him." He turned from Fiona, pacing the room. "No, I miss him. I do. Like, a lot. But he... crossed the line, I guess. And I hate him. Damn, why am I even telling you." He turned back to Fiona.

"It's fine. You haven't visited since he got here, have you?"

"No... I couldn't."

"'Means you're normal. You have the right to be angry."

"You don't even know what he did."

"Did he kill someone?"

"No."

"Stole? Raped?"

"No, for god's sake..."

"Then what."

"Domestic violence."

"Oh."

"Well, he... it's complicated."

"He beat her. What's complicated about that?"

"No!"

Fiona sat back. Wilson noticed a sincere concern betrayed by her features. She looked nice, and normal, and inquisitive in her own, compelling way.

"Then what happened?"

"He's my best friend. He's been my friend for... a long time."

"That I believe I knew already."

"He just... He's troubled. A lot. He tried to be happy, it even worked for a while. She was his savior, for many reasons. But he was just too much to deal with, in the end. And he can't tolerate failure. He drove his car into the wall of her living room, for some sick reason he doesn't even know. He fled the country, I didn't hear from him until he got arrested. I tried visiting, he refused, I never came back. It's been a year. And that's it." Overwhelmed by his compressed, slightly frantic recap of the facts, Wilson plopped down on a chair and took a long, deep breath.

"You're doctor House's friend."

Wilson stared at Fiona, wide-eyed. "You've got almost two thousand convicts. How on earth..."

"Well, that was _huge_. World famous doc, wasted his life like that. Real shame. He turned himself in, we didn't even have to handcuff him. He didn't hurt anyone, yet he looked at me as if he had just realized he was the worst piece of sh... well, I think he realized something bad about himself. Poor lad, must be pretty fucked up."

"Yeah... I guess he is."

"Yet, crazy son of a bitch."

"Totally."

Fiona stood up and took the form from Wilson's hands.

"Oh, damn. I'm sorry..."

"What? What is it?" Wilson checked the sheet. All looked fine.

"I've just realized today is Monday. I'm afraid you'll have to come back tomorrow. I thought you knew."

"Never cared about visiting before. Whatever. I'm sorry I bothered you." Wilson grabbed his briefcase and while crossing the threshold he felt his heart sinking just a bit deeper. So that was how wrong and badly synched they were. He missed House as much as he hated the man, and that made him so incredibly insecure: he needed to see him even just to yell at him how much of a sick bastard he had been. Yet, he felt like he knew the deeper, ill-fated reasons that had led House to the extreme: his friend _was_ extreme in his own way, which could be either celestially good or inexorably twisted. Everything he did was extreme, everything he experienced was extreme: his pain, his job, his perception of life, his love for Cuddy. As hard as he was finding it to forgive him, and despite not being possibly ready yet, Wilson had formed a clear idea of why House had decided that since he didn't have anymore what he had given up his genius for – the only person who had loved him for what he was: a misfit, a failure in his soul and body –, then nothing mattered anymore.  
>House had never seen the magic inside him, the spark, the long for raising up and winning against life's worst: it was all too entangled and wrapped up in the superficial cover to be taken into serious account: what House did not know, was that the people around him had a clear perception of this feeble yet strenuous fire burning in his blue irises. That light was what people like Wilson and Cuddy had always followed: the lead to House's hidden, delicate soul. However, and much to Wilson's wishful thinking and famous naiveness, doing justice to his true self was not one of House's abilities: rotting in prison for some crazy shit was more true to his outer self than anything else. Wilson pushed the door.<p>

"Hey, doctor Wilson."

He turned back. Fiona stood holding the receiver, smiling.

"You know what? I can make a call to my Captain, see if I can do something about that visit."

Wilson placed the briefcase back on the floor and took off his jacket.

"Wow, thanks..."

"You're welcome."

She blushed a little and disappeared behind the back door to her office. The guard at the restricted area entrance smirked at Wilson.

"Dude, that was impressive. I've been trying to win her for a shitl... well, for _years_."

Wilson raised his brows.

"I probably just look pitiful."

"I'd ask her out. She's cool as f... uhm. She's _nice_. And sexy."

"Thanks for the tip." Wilson whispered unenthusiastically.

"What the hell is wrong with you? Meh." The guard adjusted his gun into the pouch and crossed his arms, checking the wall monitors perplexedly. Then, the door opened and Fiona came back, her smile now faded. Wilson stood up.

"What. What is it?"

She shook her head.

"I'm sorry. He's not here. Not anymore."

–––

"How on god's _green_ earth could you..."

The door slammed open, and a tall, thin man in a uniform walked in, furiously followed by Wilson.

"Sir, that was not a court order. He accepted a deal..."

"I don't care about your _motherfucking_ deals, Captain!"

"Sir, listen..."

"How..." Wilson brought both hands to his head, pacing the room, while the Captain was sitting at his desk. Wilson quit walking and stood motionless, hands on his hips.

"How the hell is this supposed to work out? Now _you_ tell me, because I frankly _can't_ see..."

"He's going to be of better use. It was his decision."

"Damn his decisions! It was _your_ responsibility to make him pay for what he did." Wilson turned back to the Captain, pointing his finger at him. "It was your _fucking_ decision how he would do that."

"Turns out it's not, in fact."

"Oh, don't try and sell me your crap, Captain."

"Doctor Wilson, sit down. This is an order."

Wilson exhaled. He plopped down on a chair facing the Captain's desk.

"I'm not buying it, Captain. I can't possibly imagine..."

"Sir, the judge offered him a deal. He accepted it. We just kept him here throughout the whole thing, because we had him arrested in the first place. What happens in the courthouse is none of our business: we get people, we keep them locked up when a judge sends them to custody, we make the system work. We don't make decisions about our convicts. When they accept a deal, we let them go: parole, bail, stuff like that."

"...Goddamn army..."

"Yes, goddamn army as well."

Wilson shook his head, his voice coming out in a whisper.

"Where is he now?"

"That, sir, I can't possibly know."

"He is... He can't survive whatever crap they'll put him through."

"They have standards he must meet, if they haven't sent him back to us already."

"No, listen... This is _serious_." Wilson entwined his hands, stare fixed into the Captain's. "He _can't_ do this. Doctor House is handicapped. He can't move properly, walk stairs, run."

"He is a doctor. He's probably not firing guns or bombing places, or doing anything requiring physical skills."

"Jesus, Captain. Are you even a cop? They must have tests or something. _He's not eligible_!"

The Captain stood up and held out his hand to shake Wilson's. That meeting was clearly over.

"Thing is," he said, "House is the perfect fit. When you exchange jail time for service and you're the best doctor in the Country, there's no requirement you can _not meet_. He offered himself on a damn silver plate."

Wilson's grip on the Captain's hand just wore off like the effect of a useless pill. Wearily, the oncologist walked up to the door and grabbed the handle. The Captain's last comment hit him from behind.

"Doctor Wilson, your friend is not a criminal: he doesn't belong here."

"Probably."

_But he's not normal. And he'll also get himself killed. _

––––

Kandahar, Afghanistan

–

"_Get down_!"

Again, and for the billionth time ever since he had walked for the first time those foreign, dangerous grounds, House was pushed down to the floor, flat on his stomach. A deafening blast was heard.

"All right, I'm crawling like a damn bug, is that fine?"

"Fine, doctor Hows."

"Now please get off me, Amir."

"Okay!"

Amir rolled away from House's back and adjusted the shirt on his bandages. All around them, it was only the almost intolerable, whistling and whooshing noise of fighter jets opening cuts in the skies of Kandahar.

"Ayesha! Hey, Ayesha!" House's voice echoed in the silent, empty room. Then someone's strong indian accent came from underneath a bed.

"Doctor? Is there anything else I can..."

"No, it's all fine. Just checking on you. 'You all right?"

"Yes."

"Okay then. Come out. Let's try and get to the damn shelter."

Ayesha snuck out from underneath the bed. She was a twenty-something Indian nurse: curly-haired, dark eyes resembling those haitian pearls you buy once in life because they are too expensive. Shy, a little nerdy, brave like a soldier. Ayesha, House and Amir had taken all of House's patients to the shelter hours before. They had been planning something like that for ages, knowing that the Taliban rebels were going to be attacked from above in an attempt to set the city free again. Losing Kandahar could not happen: it was like losing the war.

Amir flashed a glance at Ayesha.

"You will be my first wife, and the most loved." He whispered.

"Shut up, Amir. I can't marry you. Too poor, and not even Hindu."

"I will convince you. You will fall for me."

"You said I'll be the _first_ one! I don't wanna be the _first one_."

"I'm joking. You be the only."

"You are 19!"

"You 21, what the difference? Two years?"

"That is _so_ not gonna happen."

Ayesha blushed and House could not avoid noticing. She liked Amir, and that was reciprocal. The boy was just a little too blunt for that delicate flower. Their foreplay had been going on for three months. House muttered his idea on the whole matter.

"You two, stop the banter. I'm getting diabetes here."

"Doctor House, tell her I'm a good man."

"He's a good man, Ayesha."

"Thanks doctor."

"You're welcome, Amir."

Ayesha didn't speak. She crawled up to House's left shoulder and got to his ear.

"We're out of shots for him. I need a refill of antibiotics here or the burns will get infected. And not only his."

House turned to her.

"I know."

Ayesha reached the stairs and stood up.

"Come on. We need to check on the patients before heading to the ER. It's gonna be a mess over there."

She disappeared down the stairs, shortly followed by Amir. House grabbed the hand rail and tried keeping his grip steady, but suddenly the leg was pulsating in short-range stings. That was his private way of freaking out. In the middle of an air strike, when his hospital could be blown up entirely any time, when his patients silently prayed in a language he didn't know, when his stash of medicines was getting smaller and smaller from isolation... that was when it all got back at him. With a suppressed moan, he got to his feet and limped his way down the stairs. He needed to survive that damn air strike. For what, he did not know. But he felt like dying was not his first option at the moment. When he got downstairs, the pain was gone: he checked on the patients one by one, wishing the other doctors in the other shelters were as fine as he was, hoping this time no one would get killed. Then, he slid down on the floor and closed his eyes for a second.

"I'm gonna marry her, doc."

_What the hell._

There was no need for House to check. Amir had just sat down by his side.

"What's with arranged marriages? Wasn't that how you people do it?"

"But we are a love match, doc!"

"Jeez, Amir. She's Indian. You're what... Pashtun?"

"I'm Tajik!"

"Yeah, whatever. I thought you guys did not specialize in interracial marriages."

"I not care. I love her. We're the perfect fit."

"Right. You don't even go out."

Amir's eyes glistened.

"I know."

House turned to him.

"Hey, look. I'm sorry. I just..."

"It's okay. I forgived you already."

"You _forgave_ me already."

"I forgived you already."

"So, what are you going to do?"

"Proposition."

"Proposal."

"_Proposal_. I go to her dad, if he say no we run away to America."

"She's from an upper-class Mumbai family. And you're _so_ broke, son."

"I not care. When war finish, I finish college, I become professor, I get rich."

House furrowed his brow.

"You went to college."

"I did!"

"When?"

"In India."

"I said when, not where."

"Two years ago."

House was now completely drawn into Amir's words.

"You weren't here two years ago?"

"My dad worked for new Government, he discussed economic aid with Indian people. For build roads, hospitals, open schools back. We lived there since 2001. Ten years, doc!"

"I didn't know that, Amir."

"I was good in school, they accepted me before time."

"Wow."

"Then, we came back last year, and they set the house to fire and my parents died."

"Guess I know that."

Someone had killed Amir's parents because they were involved in the reconstruction. So far, so good. House had never knew anything about Amir's burns except that three months earlier he had pulled him in from the arms of an upset Jordan, through the doors of the ER. Amir was in pretty bad shape, but the fire had not reached his bedroom and he had gotten burned while trying to escape. Not enough to be fatal.

"What did you study?"

"Mathematics."

"That's cool."

"That is."

"_It_ is."

"It is. I'm gonna marry her, doc."

"Okay, man."

A _bang_, and the lights went out.


End file.
